I'm looking into importing my Fury to New Zealand. One of the points that has come up is that the uprights can't have any welds on cast or forged parts. There are some technicalities to get them through but they're not feasible. That means the cut down Escort McPherson struts won't be usable. Someone I spoke to over here suggested replacing them with Cortina uprights.

I spoke to Steve Hughes and he said the Cortina uprights don't use the same mounting on the suspension arms. What he couldn't answer is what would happen to the geometry. Given that I would need to get the suspension arms remade with thicker tube anyway, would Cortina uprights make a difference to the geometry and if so how could it be avoided? Are there any other suitable alternatives to the cut and welded McPhersons? I was told RAW make solid aluminium replacements but it turns out they don't make them any more.

Is the welding on the Escort struts not just confined to the strut tube which is neither forged or cast.

There was a mention that they could be passable because of that but I need to speak to a certifier here. I've been too busy recently. As an alternative I was looking into whether Cortina uprights would actually be usable or not.

It should be possible to use Cortina uprights but you may well have to remake the top and bottom wishbones to suit. There will be some effect on steering geometry but as i don't have access to Fury I cannot measure what is there to advise further.
I should get a chance over the weekend to compare the botom ball joints of Escort and Cortina to see if they are compatable.

Change my seven from escort to cortina but changed arms at same time,depends what suspension joints you are using if its cortina lower and normal transit top its a straight swap same I think if its maxi lower and transit top. I only chaged arms due to being very rusty.

I don't want to get the safety nannies all fired up, we're all aware that this isn't a good thing.

However, I have changed from Escort to Cortina. I bought a pair of RMD alloy Cortina units (actually 2nd hand from MK himself, via Ebay). I assume they're the older type, since they had the welded steering arms (more nannies, but RMD did replace these FOC with the cast versions). I simply machined out the top, threaded for a Metro balljoint, screwed it in, and bolted the thing to the wishbones. Geometry is restored to some extent by extending the bottom balljoint - yep, there's a few threads still left. Bump, steer and roll are all withing reasonable approximation to what was there, which I guess wasn't too CAD heavy in the 1st place.

It's a BEC, it weighs 390Kg all in, running slicks. It gets inspected after every event. The above is totally insane to do on a road car, so don't.

Sounds promising that it would be a straightforward swap, then. I've been advised to bring the car over here as is, and if the current uprights aren't passable then we can remake things to suit the local rules.

Most other things to get the car road legal are fairly simple, like replacing copper brake lines with steel, and using certain types of braided hose.